The Hindu AI Summit 2024: T.N. to set up centre of excellence with AI lab

The Tamil Nadu government will set up a Centre of Excellence with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) lab and will offer this to startups and other small players with a minimal operation fee, said Kumar Jayanth, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Information Technology and Digital Services, Government of Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu government will set up a Centre of Excellence with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) lab and will offer this to startups and other small players with a minimal operation fee, said Kumar Jayanth, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Information Technology and Digital Services, Government of Tamil Nadu.

Delivering his keynote address after inaugurating The Hindu AI Summit 2024, Mr. Jayant highlighted that the State recently announced its AI mission, and pointed out that he would speak to the ICT Academy and explore how AI could be built into academics.

Speaking about the impact of AI in specific sectors, Mr. Jayant said: “One sector that has totally transformed is how we consume information. If you search for anything on Google, it gives an AI overview.”

He, however, added: “One of the biggest issue is bias, like algorithm-based boas and basic cognitive bias.”

Santhosh T.G., secretary of the CIO Association, said that though AI has been around for several decades, it has now emerged in a new avatar. We need to understand its capabilities and explore its full potential, he said.

Suresh Raman, convenor, CII TN ICT Panel & vice president and regional head, Tata Consultancy Services, said Tamil Nadu has always been ahead of the curve and has come out with policies pertaining to AI. Pointing out the challenges ahead, he said: “The real challenges lie in end-to-end infrastructure for IT for AI to freely scale. When I say infrastructure, I’m talking about infrastructure for AI training itself, and it is not as easy as it appears. The cost of AI hardware is going to be so high. Eventually, the hardware cost will come down.”

L.V. Navaneeth, CEO of The Hindu Group, said that AI is no longer a thing of the distant future; it is here and is shaping the way we live, work, and innovate. “While some important voices have argued that the impact of AI on humanity is likely to be as fundamental as fire, others have cautioned that, without the right guardrails, it could turn out to be an uncontrollable, raging wildfire,” he added.